Make It Mindful: An Education Podcast

# Make It Mindful — Lesley Hatton (Global Campus, Nord Anglia Education)

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[00:00:00] **[INTRO — recorded separately]**

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Welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast about how students learn, who they're becoming, and how new technologies and global experiences reshape teaching.

I'm Seth Fleischauer, founder of Banyan Global Learning. Today's guest is Lesley Hatton, a Senior Programme Officer at Nord Anglia Education, where she works on Global Campus — the platform connecting roughly 90 schools worldwide. Her team has found that students at the most connected schools score six to ten points higher on the intercultural behaviors they're trying to build.

This episode of Make It Mindful is brought to you by Banyan Global Learning.

At Banyan Global Learning, we design structured live experiences that connect classrooms to the world.

Banyan Global Cohorts is a 4-week journey in global competence. Classrooms join an international cohort of 3–4 schools and meet weekly during regular class time for facilitated, 45-minute sessions built around a compelling Big Question.

Students explore global contexts through virtual field trips, exchange ideas with international peers, and create a final digital artifact that expresses identity, perspective, and connection across cultures.

If you're curious about what this could look like in your classroom or school, we'd love to talk. You can find us at banyangloballearning.com.

And now here's my conversation with Lesley Hatton.

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**Seth** [00:00:00]
Lesley, welcome to the podcast.

**Lesley** [00:00:03]
Thank you, Seth. It's nice to be here.

**Seth** [00:00:06]
It's great to see you again. The last time we talked was around the World Cup — my condolences to the Three Lions, that was tough. But you've fully recovered, I imagine, since then.

**Lesley** [00:00:18]
Yes, I think so. Thinking about the season ahead now — forgetting international, back down to where it's all at.

**Seth** [00:00:28]
There's always a new season, we'll get them next year. Speaking of international — you're at Nord Anglia, and you run a program I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for. It's called Global Campus, and we're here to learn more about that today.

**Seth** [00:00:44] *(approx)*
So, you're at Nord Anglia, you run a program called Global Campus. Nord Anglia is an international network of schools. Global Campus is their answer to creating a single entity across all of these campuses, right? You've got curricula that are similar but also unique to specific places, but the benefit of having a network of schools is that you can actually connect people — there's no red tape that you'd normally have when different bureaucracies try to join together for an international collaboration. You can just do it, because they're all within your umbrella.

I'm curious about the types of experiences this affords Nord Anglia students. You've got these things called connection pillars — self, world, experts, and community. Those are the four connection pillars within Global Campus. How did you land on those four, and what's the activity that best represents each one?

**Lesley** [00:01:32] *(approx)*
Okay, so I think Global Campus has been around a long time, and originally there were connections there but they weren't visible as those four connection pillars. I'm talking right back to when it was known as Global Classroom, back in 2011 — far fewer schools then, far fewer students than what we're talking about now. But they were still making these kinds of connections.

In 2023, we did some research with UCL, and connection was what they identified as key for what they called intercultural competence. We've got international students everywhere in the world, and as a parent sending your child to an international school, what you'd hope is that when they come out of school, they're able to interact wherever they are in the world — that they have some sort of intercultural competence. The connections that research identified were those four you just named. So I won't take credit for this part — these four pillars were identified and developed from those findings.

Looking at them, we could see these were the four areas that seemed to encourage this intercultural competence. The one I feel most of our activities really relate to is community. That can mean all kinds of levels — it might mean your local community, I've seen schools do things like help with their food bank or do Christmas collections. But it might also be the wider community — your school or your city, but also, as you said, being part of a wider community of around 90 schools now, in different countries all around the world. By taking part in Global Campus, you're exposed to people from all of those schools and you're suddenly part of a much bigger community.

The activity that represents this well is pen pals — that classic thing of forging connections with students from another school. The way we do it, it isn't one individual pen pal — we pair up classes. That means you can have language-based pairings, so if students are learning Spanish and want to practice with native Spanish speakers, we can pair them up. They practice their language, but also learn what it's like in the other country. One of the best things I've seen was two classes who did an art class together — each student had their iPad propped up, on a call with a student from the other class, drawing portraits of each other and chatting during a live art class. That was all through pen pals. That's the kind of connection, and being part of the community, that pillar helps develop.

**Seth** [00:05:57] *(approx)*
That sounds like an awesome example — not only are you making connections, you're sharing cultures, sharing skills you can showcase along the way. I want to back up for a moment — UCL, University College London, for my American listeners. That study —

**Lesley** [00:06:23] *(approx)*
Yes.

**Seth** [00:06:32] *(approx)*
The four pillars — are they saying that in order to have intercultural competence, to go anywhere in the world and be able to interact, there needs to be an understanding of self, of the world, of experts, of community — that you're building competencies within each of those pillars, and that gives you intercultural competence? Is that right?

**Lesley** [00:07:01] *(approx)*
Yeah, it's about being able to apply knowledge of different cultures to their own lives, so they can reflect on what they've learnt through interactions with other people, and they're developing critical cultural awareness — the sensitivity, and being able to understand there are differences between different groups, and that they can welcome and appreciate that kind of diversity. By learning about different perspectives globally, they can develop a sense of belonging — understanding that although there are differences, there are also lots of things that are the same. By doing all of that, they develop friendships, they develop that connectedness within the community, and the empathy you need for that kind of cultural understanding.

**Seth** [00:08:16] *(approx)*
We always talk about it at Banyan Global Learning too, because we do similar work — connecting students on different campuses, though we're not part of one network like Nord Anglia. We're connecting schools that are part of different networks, or no network at all, and trying to create that network. We always talk about cultural exploration, intercultural competence, as a window and a mirror. You're looking into another culture, learning about the differences and similarities, and that inevitably holds up a mirror to yourself, so you understand your own cultural identity in comparison to others. There are things that are universally human, and things that are specific to you, for all sorts of reasons — groups you might identify with.

**Lesley** [00:09:00] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Seth** [00:09:10] *(approx)*
That can only really get pieced out when you come into contact with other cultures and identities. I want to zoom in on the experts pillar, because that one's a little different from how I understood it — self, world, community make a ton of sense for intercultural competence. Experts feels more like an academic pursuit. I'm wondering how that plays into intercultural competence, this idea of connecting with experts.

**Lesley** [00:09:57] *(approx)*
Great question. What we're doing is giving students, wherever they are in the world, the same experiences as part of Nord Anglia. We have collaborations with MIT, with Juilliard — dance, drama, and performing arts, in case some people aren't aware — and with UNICEF, which is more well known. Each one shows a different and unique perspective on the world.

We do a lot of work on the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the students love learning how they can make the world a better place. There will be different priorities in different countries — the impact of some of UNICEF's work might be much more prevalent and obvious at some of our schools than at, say, a school in New York. You're not going to see that same reality compared to a school somewhere like India. So by being part of these collaborations, you're giving students the opportunity to understand what UNICEF is doing in the world, and for MIT and Juilliard, experiences of the performing arts and STEAM subjects — especially for girls who might come from a background where STEAM isn't something that's common for them to study. Having this collaboration with MIT is something we really try to encourage. It gives everyone the same starting point, and that understanding that there's a wider world out there.

I'll say it's not just those collaborations — we also use experts in other activities. That's a chance for schools, especially smaller ones, to have access to something like an award-winning author judging a writing competition — an opportunity you wouldn't have unless you're part of this bigger group. So the opportunities open up under all of these things.

**Seth** [00:12:35] *(approx)*
Mm.

**Lesley** [00:12:39] *(approx)*
One of the things I really like that MIT runs for us is called MIT Abstracts. They choose a graduate student who gives a talk about the research they're doing, and students can join the call, listen to someone who might only be a few years older than them, and think: wow, this could be me, this is what I could do. Then they can ask questions. You might live on the opposite side of the world from MIT, but you've still got the opportunity to be heavily involved.

**Seth** [00:13:38] *(approx)*
Yeah, it's cool. So often when I think about intercultural competence, I think about the interpersonal piece, but what you're describing is leveraging live video as a tool to create a shared context for that intercultural connection, which makes a ton of sense. Thank you, UCL, for those pillars.

Speaking of opportunity — I actually have a second podcast, Why Distance Learning, that comes out of 20 years in the distance learning industry, where that question gets asked a lot: why do this over distance learning instead of having someone there in person? The answer we've always landed on is that live video creates access — an opportunity to connect with new people, undiscovered places, and fresh ideas.

**Seth** [00:14:34] *(approx)*
It's a similar standard to the one you use when deciding whether an activity belongs in Global Campus — does it create a connection that students couldn't get from the internet on their own? What's an example of an idea that failed that test, which gives us a sense of the ones that pass through, and the difference between the two?

**Lesley** [00:14:58] *(approx)*
There have been lots. Every year we ask the students and teachers what they want to see on Global Campus, and they'll often come back with fantastic ideas. But when we look at them, we ask: is this actually making connections? Is it allowing collaboration? Does it develop the student behaviors that are all part of intercultural competence? Does it relate to one of our connection pillars? So sometimes there's something we know would be really popular, but we haven't gone ahead with it.

One was a mathematics club — we've tried very hard to call it "mathematics club" rather than "math club" or "maths club" so everyone can call it whatever they want. It had been requested for years, and a couple of years ago we sat down and tried to find a way to make it work without it just being lessons — and we couldn't find a way, so we didn't go ahead with it. We'd had a coding club the year before, and it hadn't managed to forge any real collaboration or connection — you just did the activity and posted that it was done. We didn't want more of that.

What was great this year is we had a whole new team, and they came up with new ideas — partly because there are new tools available to us, but a lot of it was just different thinking. It's about finding things that involve human connection that wouldn't otherwise happen — working together to solve a maths problem, or sharing different ways you learn times tables. When I was still teaching, you'd hear things like, "have you heard, in this country, this is how they learn their times tables" — and you think, wow, that's incredible, I've never heard of that, and it can be really useful.

Hopefully we've found enough ways for students, who really wanted something to do with maths, to learn from each other and collaborate, so it becomes more of a global conversation rather than just what you're talking about in your own classroom, with the people you see every day.

**Seth** [00:18:14] *(approx)*
And it's interesting, because that's an example of exposing students to norms in different countries that's very low stakes — no one's going to get offended that someone learned their times tables differently. But there are many areas within culture where very different norms emerge about what's appropriate to say or show. You're connecting many different countries at once, navigating many cultures at a single time. How do you approach designing one platform that can work for all of these places at once?

**Lesley** [00:18:56] *(approx)*
It's hard — there isn't really a one-size-fits-all, and we have to be a little flexible. When we're designing new activities, we focus on themes that are genuinely global — ones that encourage curiosity and respect and understanding of different cultures. We know what a lot of our schools celebrate — something like World Book Day, which is fairly apolitical. Those are the things we try to keep our finger on the pulse of — what does everyone have in common — Pi Day, International Day of Women, things most schools will celebrate. We try to make sure students can learn from each other without feeling we're promoting one right kind of perspective.

We think very carefully about this. We provide clear guidance to teachers and students, and we spend a lot of time on our sharing spaces — students post on sharing walls, and some of that moderation is AI-assisted, so some things get flagged automatically. But as you say, there are things that might be fine to talk about in one country and not another, and that's where my team spends a lot of time reading through what's written, thinking about what's acceptable, what's someone's viewpoint, and what's someone stating as fact when it's actually a viewpoint. Through all of the guidance we give, it's about encouraging students to be respectful of what other people have written, but also curious — to ask, "why do you think that," "what's it like in your country," "why is that the case."

When they can look at one theme from different viewpoints, that's when they start to learn and understand that not everyone will have the same opinion as them or the people around them. We don't want to remove the things that make us all different — we're trying to create a safe environment where they can encounter difference and engage with it thoughtfully.

One way the platform helps is that we can select what people can see. Sometimes there's content that, for legal reasons within a country, a school just can't have access to — there are countries where a school can get into trouble for having access to a particular type of content. We can share content with teachers in advance so they can decide what's right for their context, and it means the students and the school stay safe. But ultimately we try to keep as much of it there as possible. It's a very tricky one, Seth.

**Seth** [00:23:19] *(approx)*
Such delicate and tricky work — I give you credit for engaging in it, to provide the opportunity. There's inevitably going to be compromise when you're matching cultures up with each other, because there are edges that need to be resolved.

Let's talk about impact. You mentioned student behaviors — you have six of them that you're tracking. You found that when you compared your most-connected Nord Anglia campuses to the rest, there was roughly a six-to-ten point gap in students self-reporting on these behaviors. What's the story there? What are these behaviors you're measuring, and what do you think it says that you're seeing this gap in the ones that are most connected?

**Lesley** [00:24:26] *(approx)*
Yeah, this also came out of the research — six behaviors identified as ones intercultural students should be developing. Through each of our activities, we've tried to make sure every activity has at least one of our student behaviors as a focus. We tweaked the wording slightly to make it work.

The first one's connection — we've already talked a lot about that, it's about connecting with people. Then there's agency, which wasn't a word I'd used much before, but I hear it everywhere now — it's about taking control of your own learning, following your interests, learning in a way that works for you.

Then there are two that are fairly similar: broader worldview and cross-cultural empathy. In the first year we really pushed the student behaviors, these were two we tried hard to find activities for — things like finding ways for students to share what their world is like, a kind of "view from my window" — what's it like for me living in Yangon, what's it like living in Quito, how it's different, how it's the same. A lot of what we've already talked about comes under this too — really guiding students on what content is suitable in some countries and not others, so that, at the time, it might feel a little odd to them — why can't I put a picture of a pig here, for instance — but the point is we don't want them, as an adult, going somewhere in the Middle East and causing offense without that knowledge. We're an international school community, and that's a real, basic thing we want them to be aware of — that understanding of "that's fine for me, but maybe not right for you" is definitely improving.

So the fifth one is about developing confidence — giving students the opportunity to voice their ideas and opinions, stand up and take part in a live debate, or realize their artwork is good enough to win a global competition. All of these contribute to the confidence we want students to have by the time they finish school. And finally, the last one is engagement — being part of your community and wanting to make a difference in the world. Once you have that cross-cultural empathy and broader worldview, hopefully that inspires students to see and understand the things in the world they want to make a difference with. Those are our six student behaviors, all helping to promote intercultural education.

**Seth** [00:28:19] *(approx)*
And when you're measuring those with the highly connected students — it's a self-reporting mechanism, so they're talking about the extent to which they feel they're embodying these skills. If you were to qualitatively describe the difference between an engaged school and a less engaged one, what are you seeing in those schools?

**Lesley** [00:28:51] *(approx)*
It's hard, because we're not in the schools day to day — we mostly see the output. We see the posts, and emails and things from teachers. When you see a school post a little video montage of how they took part in an activity, and you can see the presentation on the board behind them, and you think, I made that, and now it's being used in all these classrooms, and all these kids had this amazing time taking part in that competition or activity, and there are pictures of them smiling, holding up their work — it's great, it's really nice. That's the side we see.

When we do get to go into schools, which doesn't happen often, you get feedback from teachers — "we love this activity," or "hey, you used to do that." I went into one of our schools once, and a teacher talked about how there used to be resources on Global Campus to help prepare students before going on our Tanzania expedition — different animals, bits of the language. She said it was fantastic, and asked what happened to that content. That was literally an offhand conversation in the library. I came back, spoke with my colleague on the Expeditions team, and she found a lot of those resources, updated them, and now there are lovely resources where students can learn a few words of the local language, learn what animals they might see, even do a 360 tour — here are the toilets, here's the bedroom, this is where you might eat — a nice preparation for going somewhere that will probably push them completely out of their comfort zone.

**Seth** [00:31:04] *(approx)*
Many of the people listening are not going to be part of an international network of schools, let alone Nord Anglia. If you were advising a school with no official sister campuses on how to get even a fraction of what Global Campus gives kids, where would you tell them to start?

**Lesley** [00:31:26] *(approx)*
I've been there — I worked at an international school that wasn't part of a wider group, predominantly local students but with a fair number of international students. I wanted them to have that broader worldview, cross-cultural empathy — and they wanted to know what it's like in another country, since a lot of them would go on to university in the UK, America, or Australia. So I used my own contacts — we made pen pals, a little pen pal group, writing to students at a school I'd taught at previously in the UK. We also looked at opportunities for engagement within the local community — this was a country with very rich and very poor, and helping them understand their privilege, and support those less privileged locally.

It's really hard, and I think for schools to give those kinds of opportunities, it's often about starting small. Forget the technology to begin with — it's about building a relationship you can grow from, often with another school. My own kids' school isn't international, but it has international gold award status, and one of its most successful things has been a link with a school in Eastern Europe that started small and is now quite a big relationship. You don't need a big, fancy, sophisticated platform — it's about making meaningful opportunities. It might just be using Zoom or Teams to connect. A lot of the time, what students enjoy most is those face-to-face opportunities, on a call with students from another school, working together on a project, debating, or just chatting like the pen pals do. That's the most meaningful.

Having a real purpose to your interaction helps too — it's good to be able to chat, but it helps to have a focus for what your interaction is going to be. Finding a project you can work on, or something you really want to learn from the other person about — that's all you need. Nord Anglia is amazing because we've got so many schools, but you don't need lots of schools. I think you start with one, and people spread out from there. As long as those connections work, are good, and have an impact on students' learning, that's all you need.

**Seth** [00:34:57] *(approx)*
And it's all about that relationship, and if you can figure out the time zones and scheduling, those live connections are pretty magical. One of the places we'll send people in the show notes is Emily Murphy's podcast at Nord Anglia — I'll link that. She's actually been on this podcast, about 45 episodes ago, discussing metacognition, so I'll link that as well. Is there any other place on the internet listeners can go to learn more about Global Campus?

**Lesley** [00:35:37] *(approx)*
We've been trying hard the last few years to build up our social media presence — trying to get schools to use the hashtag #GlobalCampus. It's been a bit of a challenge, but we're definitely trying to use social media more, posting on Instagram and LinkedIn. We have a dedicated page on the Nord Anglia website that's in the process of being updated. You can go to Global Campus and see what the page looks like, without being able to log in any further. Look out for #GlobalCampus — we try to celebrate winners of competitions, and we're just trying to let people know the amazing opportunities their students can have through taking part in Global Campus.

**Seth** [00:36:35] *(approx)*
It certainly does sound amazing. Thank you so much for the work you do, and for coming on the show to share the story — it was wonderful to have you.

**Lesley** [00:36:44] *(approx)*
Thank you so much, Seth.

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**[OUTRO — recorded separately]**

That's a wrap on our conversation with Lesley Hatton.

What stood out to me was how much of Global Campus comes down to constant judgment calls — deciding which activities actually build connection versus which ones just feel like more schoolwork with extra steps. Lesley's four connection pillars, and the six behaviors her team tracks, are a useful lens even if you're nowhere near a network of ninety schools.

If you're trying to build any version of this yourself, her advice was to start with one relationship, not a platform.

We'll have links to Global Campus and Nord Anglia in the show notes.

Thanks for listening to Make It Mindful, and we'll see you next time.